The Dutchess County Local Solid Waste Management Plan, Rethinking Waste (.pdf) is the ten-year plan for the management of solid waste. Rehinking Waste outlines how much solid waste we are currently generating, how much we currently recycle and reuse and sets a plan for how we can decrease generation of solid waste and increase what we take out of the waste stream.

The last plan was adopted in 1990 and covered a twenty-year period. The County, as the Solid Waste Planning Unit, is required by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to have an up-to-date solid waste management plan as it is a necessary and essential element in maintaining an environmentally-sound integrated solid waste management program.

The 2012 Rethinking Waste includes information on our quantity and types of solid waste, a description of our current programs, administrative, legislative and financial solid waste structures, an assessment and evaluation of our solid waste program, a detailed implementation plan and schedule for achieving the goals of our solid waste management plan, and ten-year projections for solid waste generation and recycling rates.

Three main goals of Dutchess County are to decrease solid waste generation, increase reuse and recycling, and minimize the use of landfills for solid waste disposal. The overall goal of the County is to view our solid waste not as garbage, but as a resource.

Dutchess County adopted the plan April 2013 and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation approved the plan June 2013.